I just saw something pretty interesting, that Docker is changing how containers will run in Docker desktop and this looks to be pretty interesting. They are looking like they are introducing something called Docker VMM which is beta. Basically, from what I understand, Docker is changing th virtualization layer under Docker Desktop instead of having to rely on existing virtualization stacks in either Windows or macOS.

Here are a few of the details. Docker says the new VMM should be faster container startup and better file I/O, along with better memory management. The memory side seems to be the more interesting part top me since Docker VMM can give back unused memory to the host when any of the containers are idle. I have seen Docker Desktop eat through RAM many times, so if this improves, I will take it.

File sharing is another area that seems interesting to test. Bind mounts and host-to-container file access have been a whole lot slower than just natively running Docker containers on Linux. Docker VMM is available starting with Docker Desktop 4.86.

On Windows you can enable it under:

• Settings > General > Docker VMM

Mac users who are using Docker VMM will automatically get the rebuilt engine after they upgrade. Docker is looking to be targeting somewhere around the end of October 2026 for GA from what it looks like and the interesting part is that they plan to make Docker VMM the default engine on Mac, Windows, and even Linux. Docker is also using the virtualization engine  for Docker Sandboxes, so it looks like this is becoming a bigger part of Docker's architecture moving forward.

I'm definitely going to play around with this one. I'd like to compare memory usage and container performance against what I see with the current Docker Desktop setup and see if the difference is actually noticeable.

Anyone tried the beta yet? Seeing any differences?

Source:

https://www.docker.com/blog/docker-vmm-public-beta/